Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 May 01 - 09:24 AM

I only have a minute here, so this will be brief. Claymore, I accept your pedigree. Too fucking many people post in these types of threads with no frame of reference. You have made certain we all know that you are a warrior. But I am going to say one thing to you, Brother. HE LOST HIS FUCKING FOOT!! HE MAINTAINED COMMAND UNTIL HIS TEAM WAS SAFE!!! What I hear from you is that old Navy envy that I here out of SOME Marines all the time. We can debate all fucking day about this Navy/Marine bullshit. And I agree that politics get into the fray more often than not. And I really agree that that young Marine deserved a Medal of Honor. But get off that load of shite about Kerry. You, a combat vet, should know better than the rest of these self proclaimed sages, what went on there. You should know that most of us did things that, in the air of 30 years reflection, and in the absence of the terror of the times, don't look very good. Neither did No Gun Ri. And there are others in every single war.

On to your general comments. While I don't disagree with some of your assessment, It is my opinion that you ignore role that lousy intel, usually gathered by non-military sources, plays in those actions. The Grenada operation was a complete goatf**k, and an inappropriate use of the teams. And for what?

We do have an area of agreement. I don't believe the Special Ops groups of today are the same as they were 30 years ago. You captured exactly what the mission should be. Todays specwarriors are, indeed, trained for missions that they will likely never see.

And no, Clay, we don't have a big conflict going. I just believe you are wrong with regard to Bob Kerry. And I believe you are absolutely right about politics getting in the way of that young Marine getting his just recognition. Want to start a campaign to write this wrong? I will do whatever it takes to help you. I MUST get my oversized arse to work.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: InOBU
Date: 02 May 01 - 03:24 PM

Hi Guys
I decided to stay out of this until I saw the 60 min. piece which presented Kerry's side as well as Klann's and the Vietnamese. It was a tragic story, which raises some old questions we who worked in the legal system have faced time and time again. I find I believe Klann, after seeing Kerry, and understand Kerry's reluctance to deal with this painful act of his youth.
The dilema is, how can we continue to bring Nazi criminals to justice, and seek justice against Serbian war criminals, if we do not deal with the possible criminal actions of our soldiers as well.
I would say that the testimony on the show raised enogh question to warrent a hearing. It was certainly what would be described as a prima facie case that an atrocity took place.
What do we say to William Callie, if we do not hold a hearing, - sorry Bill, you where the scape goat for all our sins, and if one waits long enough to be found out, he is exhonerated by time?
I don't know what the sentence should be, if in fact he lined up women and children and killed them. But, as my mother's people were also killed, by a war machine, bent on making targets of civilians, I would reluctantly say, that in order that as a nation, we do not make this part of the way we conduct our selves in war, if in fact he did do this, a price should be paid. Perhaps, if found guilty beyond a resonable doupt, in an enlightend future, he would be sentenced to aid in the removal of the landmines we left in Veit Nam, so that both communities could come together over this, rather than a trial be an open wound.
Finally Doug - many many protesters went to jail. Some of us did not go to Canada, but became - as I did combat photographers, to show our convictions were not born of fear - but rather, a desire not to be put in the possition Mr. Kerry was put in, by a country whoes government did not deserve trust. I would have to say I could only hope McNamara and Kissinger were co-defendants in any trial, but well, I'm an idealist.
Truely, the best to all,
Larry

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 May 01 - 02:17 PM

The retired army Major General who works with me, just showed me the latest issue of Time magazine, 5/7/01 and I quote from the feature article "Ghosts of Viet Nam" (www.time.com):

"During Kerrey's brief, lamentable run for the presidency in 1992, he confounded his handlers with his ambivalence about exploiting what should have been his strongest political asset: his war heroism. Everywhere he went, people thanked him for it. But always, there was an awkwardness in the way he addressed it. In the end, under pressure from his consultants, he mentioned it plenty, but he always seemed to talk around it. Kerrey never mentioned his Bronze Star for Thanh Phong, but he could not escape the glory of his other decoration. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military prize, for his actions in another raid less than a month after Thanh Phong.

That one too went very wrong — information from defectors led Kerrey's squad into a trap. Chastened by the killings in Thanh Phong, Kerrey had decided to take these targets as prisoners. As a result, he told TIME last week, "I think I almost got some of my men killed that night." Instead, in a 90-sec. fire fight, seven V.C. were gunned down — but not before a grenade landed on Kerrey's foot, shattering his leg and wounding his groin, chest and face. Declining morphine for the pain, Kerrey refused to relinquish his command until he had got his men to safety.

The disastrous mission that one SEAL called a "bumbling overf___" was deemed a success by the brass. Ambrose put Kerrey in for a Silver Star, but as the request moved up, senior officers embellished the description and elevated the recommendation. The next year, Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry.

They all knew it was ridiculous, Ambrose told Karen Tumulty, then with the Los Angeles Times, in 1992. "Bob wanted to turn the medal down ... It was just another night out," he said. "We just got hit." Kerrey and the others believed the "honor" was politically motivated: Nixon's unpopular war needed a few more heroes. Kerrey's buddies told him to accept the medal for the sake of all those who had fought and lost more than he had. Kerrey's sister Jessie Rasmussen says he was still struggling with a decision as the family gathered in Washington for the ceremony. But on May 14, 1970, just 10 days after National Guardsmen shot and killed antiwar protesters at Kent State University, Kerrey allowed Nixon to pin the country's highest military honor on his chest. "

I'm sure the Navy brass were VERY good at "embellishing" and "elevating" the award. And the article merely confirms what my keyboard bumbling was trying to say about the misuse of special units.

I have friends whose view of the world is different from mine, and who believe that even if a fake hero was awarded the Medal of Honor, if that person speaks out for peace, then a greater good is achieved. It may be that the young Marine on Mutter's Ridge would never have been the spokesman that the graduate of the University of Nebraska turned out to be. Kerrey certainally won the hearts of the Peace-at-Any-Cost crowd.

But in quieter moments, I think that Marine should have at least had the chance to speak out, no matter how inarticulately, after really winning what Kerry stained. I am, even as a combat vet, in no position to judge Kerrey, but I hope the darkest hole in Hell goes to the hypocrites...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 02 May 01 - 12:17 PM

Mick, I'm sorry we even have disagreement, but I hope it's professional.

My problem has been the mission creep of many of the special unit operations. I was involved with the planning of the Grenada op and went nuts over the stupid use of the SEALs then, and later in the Panama stupidity of have two SEAL teams tied down trying to secure Noreiga's private jet.

Special units (whether Green Beanies, Super Squids, or Recon Marines) do not take and hold ground. They snoop, poop and vaporize. I did not believe in the Grab or Stab missions then (we were running them in the 'Z) and my long view only confirms it. We develop special ops capability that becomes so specialized, we can almost never use them in the real world. Then, because they start to get rusty due to no "action" to test their skills, we develop actions which are EASILY handed by less special units, commit them to actions which were never comptemplated during the unit-concept planning stages, and wonder why they screw the pooch.

I would ask you to take the time to research the use and history of SEALs in Viet Nam, Grenada, and "Just Cause" in a realistic and detached way, comparing losses and gains and the even more ethereal "perceived gains". Also read "Black Hawk Down" about the Rangers in Somalia. At the conclusion of these actions, I didn't write the medal citations, I wrote the AAR's (After Action Reports) and they were sickening.

Finally, I have to clear up two points from my earlier post. In addition to the carrier pilots, I should have included the Riverine forces, the Chaplains, and God love 'em, the Navy Corpsman which no Marine in his right mind would forget (don't go there... ).

Secondly, in reference to the Medal of Honor. I attempted to write up a young Marine who ended up with one leg off from an RPG, who held his position on a forward ridge LP, and after running out of ammo, ended up killing two armed NVA with ROCKS, yet his medal was down graded because the "Navy hadn't met it's quota, and we (Marines) have too many". I read Kerry's citation; there is no comparison...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 02 May 01 - 02:44 AM

here is a song the angels gave to me for those who have been through such horrible times.

Woe Betide Us

Woe betide us woe betide us we the weary of the war Is there no one who can guide us who has gone this way before

Woe betide you woe betide you are you wind your upward way There is one who has walked beside you every hour of every day

Joy betide you joy betide you endless miles you bravely trod When you felt so dead inside you journeyed hand in hand with God

(who says..) When I called you then you answered All I asked to give you gave All that you could do you did so All that you could save you saved

There is rest and there is welcome At my table you will dine All your sorrows I will cherish All the work you did was mine..

---- Today, May 1, was lay down your burdens day. So please do even if belatedly. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 May 01 - 02:04 AM

Some time or another, a person needs to talk about things, just to get them off his chest and maybe try to find some peace--As it stands right now, it isn't safe to do that, because there are way too many who are eager to point fingers and call names--

It is a great irony that a lot of our people have gone back to Vietnam and found enemy hands extended in friendship, when there are still so many at home who are unwilling to do the same--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Norton1
Date: 01 May 01 - 11:56 PM

The crappy part of this whole thing - it is being thrown at Veterans by journalists whose biggest trauma is dealing with messed up hair from rush hour. What I wish someone would do is to see Viet Nam Veterans for who we are - for the most part successful. The media dotes on the ones who got really messed up and the rest don't count. We went, we fought, we came home and tried to rebuild our lives as best we could. Sometimes against seemingly insurmountable odds. No different than my Dad did after flying 25 missions as a tail gunner in B-17s. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had nightmares right up to the time he died. Just like me - I was no hero but I still live with those dreams. And I have a good life, earn my own way, Love my beautiful wife very much, dote on my Grand children, and feel very lucky to have survived. If the Gentleman runs for office he certainly has my vote.

Semper Fidelis

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 May 01 - 10:10 PM

McGrath, your point is well taken. And it is exactly on the mark. If one is going to buy into the principle that certain actions are justifiable in the prosecution of war, then one must understand that that applies in all circumstances. And while I don't seek to rationalize it........as you know what my views on war are..........I don't buy into the attacking of Kerry as some are wont to do. If there is any lesson to be learned from this, it is that we must never buy into the "my country right or wrong" line of bullshit again. Kerry did exactly what he was supposed to do in this circumstance. When one is operating in the home turf of a guerrilla force, every person is considered to be the enemy. The fact that they got into a firefight means the mission had gone wrong. These are horrible times, and many among us will live with it for the rest of our time.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 01 - 09:36 PM

Doug, my point was that if it's justified for soldiers to kill unarmed civilian prisoners in Vietnam to protect himself, it'd be justified for other soldiers to do the same in the town you live, if there was a war on. Agree to the one and you agree to the other, simple as that. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

As you say, bad things happen in war. But in principal at least it is recognised by most countries, including the United States, that there are certain actions which are outlawed, including killing unarmed civilian prisoners whatever the circumstances. In principal...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 May 01 - 09:24 PM

Got to fight with you a bit, Clay. I am OK that this is a mission gone bad. No doubt about it. But let me say this. I am intimately familiar with the training that these SEALS went through. To suggest that they lined these people up and shot them is ludicrous. Didn't happen. To suggest that Kerry and his team got antsy and fired willy nilly is just as ridiculous. There is a reason why SEAL teams suffered much lighter casualties, and inflicted damage far in excess of our numbers. We believed in the principle of overwhelming fire superiority. We also believed that when you were in a firefight, there was a problem. As to the AO, Tan Phong is on the Delta. One must cross the Mekong to get to it. I don't like justifying our governments activities in 'Nam, but I will defend the warriors. In this particular area, anyone encountered was presumed to be VC. It is exactly the type of AO that SEALS operated in.

Your comment about Kerry's Medal of Honor seems to suggest that you don't know the details of actions he took that caused the medal to be issued. His actions just getting to the target were heroic enough to probably merit a Silver Star. The actions he took with one of his feet blown off most certainly elevated him to the level of Medal of Honor.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 01 May 01 - 05:06 PM

As a former Marine Platoon Commander in VN in 69, I suspect "What really happened" was a version of what we used to call a "Polish Firing Squad" in the Corps. "Movement to Contact" is always very difficult in the jungle and frequently one or the other of your squad will get out in front of your line of advance, and lose contact with the men on either side. Remember that the radios we had in the bush back then were big clunky things (PRC –25's etc) and were only used for calling in fire, sit reps etc. If one of your men opened fire, it was often the case that the others would reflexively swivel to the location of what is an incredibly loud sound from an oppressively quiet jungle, and begin firing too, firmly believing they were under attack, but actually firing at the sound (or the actual marine) at their left or right.

Even later, when I investigated police shootings, as an internal affairs investigator, I was amazed how many rounds one or two officers would squeeze off, firing at their own echoes and the flashes off of windows. I was very disappointed that our department went to automatic pistols with large capacity magazines for that very reason, and stayed with my six shot revolver. I was, for many years, the best marksman in my department, and shot competition for 15 years. (And while I am no fan of the NRA, I carry their very rare "Police Distinguished Marksman Badge" for shooting ten perfect targets in open competition). I derided the autos as the "spray and pray" crowd, and feel that most officers would be more circumspect with their weapons if they knew that after six bangs, they were going to face the music.

Also as an ex-cop, I am very suspicious of the Klann's statements and I would be trolling the Veterans Affairs records for prior inconsistent statements. It's my currently unsupported belief that Klann is trying to build a case for VA benefits payments, and I would spend major investigative efforts on that issue. He's "shopping a story" and to a good interrogator, this is a case of "peel and eat".

I hold no brief for Kerry either, and I believe he was an opportunist from the start. I see nothing that would warrant a Medal of Honor for his other action, other than the fact that the Navy was very under-represented in the Viet Nam Medal Dash, and were looking for a few good wounded heroes to inspire a service that was, other than the carrier pilots, conspicuous by it's absence. What was the Navy doing conducting counter-guerilla activities in the jungle? It was a bad case of trying to justify "mission creep" and basically no different than the ATF attacking the compound at Waco, Texas. "We have the capacity; Lets justify its use by using it."

It should be pointed out that murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, have no statute of limitations, unlike most other crimes, and many cases have been brought under Federal and State laws to that effect (witness the Birmingham bombing case). However, at some point you must let the dead bury the dead. I have always been suspect of those who gain much from fighting in a war, later decrying it, and this whole incident does nothing to allay the thought that hypocrisy, like history, has many tales to tell, and that when you tell both sides of a story; then half the time you're telling lies…

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 01 May 01 - 04:35 PM

As a troop commander, McGrath, Kerrey's first responsibility was to get his troops back safely. As so many others have already pointed out, one evidently could not easily recognize friend from foe in that war. Suppose Kerrey had elected to leave the area without killing the villagers, and those same people had alerted the Viet Cong resulting in Kerry's whole squad being wiped out? Would that better suit you?

As to the Dresden raid, at least the one I am referring to, it happened over a half century ago, so I doubt there will be any kind of investigating tribunal at this late date.

In war bad things happen.

Doug R

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 May 01 - 02:46 PM

For those of you who have been and done, reading between the lines, what do you think really happened there that night?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 01 - 01:42 PM

Doug believes that in order to get his troops back it is justified for a soldier to kill unarmed civilian prisoners.

I take it this doesn't just apply to American soldiers overseas, and that it would have been equally valid for British soldiers in the American Revolution, or soldiers on both sides in the American Civil War.

In other words, he'd be applying the Golden Rule - consenting in principle to the killing of his own family in similar circumstances.

I think, spaw, it may have been me that mgarvey was criticising for the Nazi linkage. What I was saying was meant to be the opposite really - saying that I don't believe that soldiers in most wars, including the Vietnam War, do turn into Nazi-style death squad members, and that Calley and Co, who did, were, I believe and hope, very much the exception.

Dresden was a major war-crime, and I look forward to the setting up of an effective international war-crimes tribunal that will mean that the people responsible for that kind of thing - and I don't mean the bomber crews - will no longer be able to rely on their own country turning a blind eye to atrocities carried out on its own behalf.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 01 May 01 - 01:07 AM

McGrath, it would be great if the "Golden Rule," applied in war. But then on the ohter hand, if the "Golden Rule,' applied, there probably wouldn't be any war.

If, I repeat from an earlier posting, Kerry believed that he could not lead his squad back safely without killing potential members of the Viet Cong, I believe he was justified in doing whatever he did.

I also mentioned Dresden earlier. In that raid in WW2, thousands of innocent German civilians died. Is the fact that Kerry's group may (or may not) have gathered the group of civilians together and shot them, any worse than what the bomber crews did during WW2 over Dresden or numerious other targets? The Nazi's sent unmanned bombs over London during WW2 and killed thousands of innocent civilians.

What, my friends, is the difference between what Kerry's squad may have done, than the bomber crews from England and the U. S. and the Nazi's did in WW2?

War has no favorites. Unfortunately, in any war, innocent people are killed.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:46 AM

What linkage are you referring to? I didn't link it and if you think I did ...read it again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:41 AM

What linkage are you referring to? I didn't link it and if you think I did ...read it again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 01 May 01 - 12:17 AM

I think the linkage of our troops with Nazis was totally uncalled for and was hate speech. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 07:00 PM

"Well there are those good men and good men do exist.....so burn his ass!!!....Yeah, that's it, when I'M the Chairman of the jury...............

The scene, a large room with a couple of "prisoners" and some "interrogators".....................

"Yeah man, I'd never sell out my country! I wouldn't do it, no way man. I would NEVER sell my country out........uh,say...What are they doing with that other guy?..............They got his pants down............What are they heating up that lead for over there?..............Aw, it doesn't matter, I would never sell out, no way man..........uh, what are they putting that funnel in his ass for?.........That's OK, I would never......Hey, they're not going to pour that hot lead in the funnel in his ass are they?..............WOOOWWWEEEEEE!!! THEY DID!!! GEEZIZ MAN...........I'll tell you all the secrets....I'll MAKE UP secrets man.......Just don't give me the hot lead enema.........

Yeah, so that's it ain't it? If you can take the hot lead enema, you can cast the first stone............"

................LENNY BRUCE, Stand Up Philosopher

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 06:50 PM

I don't know spaw. That's one reason I wouldn't trust myself to fight in any army, no matter what the alternative.

All I know is there's one rule for judging other people - and that's don't rush to judgement, because you don't know if you'd have done anything different or better. But there's another rule for judging yourself, and that means accepting responsibility for what you have done, and that killing unarmed prisoners is murder. And part of accepting responsibility means telling the truth about what really happened.

I believe and hope that most soldiers in most wars do manage most of the time not to behave like Nazis. Even including Vietnam. I've always told myself that the Calleys were the exception.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 06:39 PM

the Jews you see had been very conditioned to expect the worst, fear the worst.

Plus too, by the time they got to the camps, they were extremely weak, cold, half-starving, most probably had dysintery (sp?), etc. etc.

It's too facile to say "they should have done this or that." As we sit in comfort in our well-heated homes with all the food we need, It's all too easy to judge people in circumstances grossly unlike anything we have ever experienced or could ever expect to. All too easy, and wrong IMHO.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 06:17 PM

Ya' know McGrath, that kinda' stuff reads real well but I don't think it holds up in court. I'm sure you've seen the pictures of 1 German guard per 200 Jewish prisoners..........why didn't they just overrun them? By the time we saw those pictures, the Jews you see had been very conditioned to expect the worst, fear the worst. I used to think it was really weird that one guard per 200 was really absurd until I really thought about what had been and was then going on.

U.S. Military training is team oriented and desensitizing. Ask some of the vets about advanced training and SEAL training and all of that........Geeziz, it seems to me that I would have been hard pressed not to shoot anything that moved and sort it out later.......or just say fuck it and try not to remember. Later maybe this gets to you and you have to cope with it....or not. Are you telling me that fighting in a country where you "can't tell the players without a scorecard" that you wouldn't reach the point where everything and everybody was your enemy, or at least your potential killer?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 05:48 PM

Basic rule, as always, is the Golden Rule. In this case - if that was your mother or your child or your aged parents, would you see it as right for someone else to do what you are doing to people who are someone else's mother, child or aged parents.

To stick with that you don't need to be a saint or as scholar. You might need to have courage. If you don't stick with that you certainly aren't a hero, no matter how many medals you get.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 02:24 PM

Tedham Porterhouse. Sir, You sensed wrongly, and I do know a little bit about such things.
1. My men would not receive such orders from me
2. If my men lined up civilians and started shooting them I would kill my men
3. I would not obey such orders if given by my superiors.
4. I would personally hunt down and kill anyone who did such a thing to my family.
I trust you are satisfied that Kerrey was placed in the most unfortunate of situations, and did not intentionally target civillians. (although it did happen, and continues to happen around the world)Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 12:14 PM

I sat in safety and gave orders. Spit on me. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Troll
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 12:02 PM

Kerrey was a good officer. I would have been proud to have served under him.

troll

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 11:40 AM

Actually, Dave, you mistook Buffy St. Marie for Donovan--everybody makes mistake like that--we're all just lucky you didn't have a gun--

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 11:12 AM

Well said, McGrath. Blaming the 'ordinary' soldier on the ground is like blaming the gun for all the deaths it has caused. We need to lay the blame on the people who pull the trigger. Conversely though the gun does not have any real choice, but the soldier does. It is one thing defending yourself when you genuinely believe your life/freedom/family etc is at risk - even by pre-emptive strikes. It is an entirely different kettle of fish to knowingly masacre innocent people.

The whole question of war crimes trials is one of deciding which category the soldier, at whatever level, fits in. Like as not he (or she of course) will not be firmly one or the other as the grey areas always cloud these issues.

I don't have any answers I'm afraid. I would hate to be the one who must decide, to quote Donovan, who's to live and who's to die. I don't know who can decide whether the soldier was just following orders or if he had gone too far. Quoting Mr Leitch once more (sorry - I'm an old 60's folky at heart!) Without him all this killing can't go on.

Remove the weapons and the war-mongers can no longer use them. Simplistic I know but so am I! Doesn't help here either I'm afraid so 'scuse the thread creep - but it is the way I feel.

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 10:39 AM

Robert McNamara, who, for some reason, is the only Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense that anyone ever remembers, seems to have been opposed the war, and to escalation, within the confines of the "War Room", but was the chief point man for it in the public forum--I wonder what kind of nightmares he had?

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 01 - 08:20 AM

The atrocities carried out by young confused men, doing what they have been told they are supposed to do is one thing. They have to live with knowing what they have done - and that must be pretty hard to do, whether you're American, Vietnamese, German, Japanese, Israeli, British... Few of us are entitled to be certain that we mightn't have done the same kind of thing, given the same circumstances.

But the unforgivable guilt is that of the people higher up, all the way to the top, who sit in safety and give the orders, and fail in their duty to ensure that the troops under their command kep within the rules of war, and concealed the truth. The people who hardly ever face any any kind of war-crimes trial and never will in this life.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 06:00 PM

In reading the NYT article, I hope that no one missed the fact the civilian witness to the event identifies herself as the wife of a VC, and mentions that she was hiding behind a tree while all this was happening...hmmm...

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 03:02 PM

Sorry Tedham....I knew that and am well aware of his background. It was simply a phrase I should have thought more about when I typed it. My apologies if I led anyone astray by its use.

M.Ted........Thanks as always for the complete areticle post. Much appreciated.

NH Dave.......Excellent post and I couldn't agree more. "Here kid, take this gun and kill those bastards before they kill you." Trained in that way and then sent into that situation, why are we surprised that these things happened? A lot of people want to believe they would have done things differently than Kerrey and others............Somehow, I doubt it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: NH Dave
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 02:41 PM

In any war like Viet Nam it becomes very difficult to tell "our" folks from "their" folks, especially as their folks can appear to be inocent civilians by shucking off their fighting equipment behind a nearby bush and walking onwards, looking like civilians to someone not from the area. As far as possible the Viet Cong tried to assure their fighting forces of a proper burial, but if overwhelmed, they would strip their dead of weaponry and any semblance of fighting materials, since these things haad more value to them than a dead body. Once so sanitized it is very difficult to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, although there were less older people or children in irregular fighting groups. Additionally, the Viet Cong and NVA frequently pressed civilians into service as bearers or advance "guard" forces to overwhelm opposing defenses without hazarding their own fighting forces.

We can never know what forces opposed Kerrey's team that night, but it was dark and impossible to see exactly who was firing, and by our rules of engagement in force at the time, the area had been designated a "free fire zone", an area where civilians had both been relocated to other, usually fortified villages, and banned from returing. Under these edicts, anything moving in this area was considered to be enemy, and subject to being fired upon.

Kerrey's team received and returned fire, fire from an area where civilians had been removed and banned, so they were under no restraints from returing fire.

Unfortunately, by dawn, after the smoke had cleared it turned out that many of the dead were not armed, and very possibly civilians who should not have been there by their government's edict, and may well have been killed by mistake.

Although Kerrey was inexperienced, having only been in country for a few months at that time, his actions were reviewed by his superiors and not only deemed proper under the circumstances, but found to be meritorious enough to award him the Bronze Star for the action. And of course, his later later actions earned him the Medal of Honor.

This falls under the category of different times and different ways. We can not judge his actions then by our current set of values, without doing him and every one in that war a disservice. These people, may draftees, were sent off to fight a war in a forign land with the admonition, we either stop Communism over there or we will have to fight it here in our streets. Then after 12-13 months living under severe conditions, these young people return to find that the country that had sent them to Viet Nam, on pain of prison for NOT going was now shunning them, and calling them murderers for whatever they did or their neighbors THOUGHT that they did while serving their country as ordered. Then to top it all off, we soon found that we were not going to be allowed to win the war, or at least fight it as if we meant to win. Finally after nearly ten years of inconclusive action, our government finally began a bombing campaign that convinced the North Vietnamese that they should negotiate a peace, and we were out, with many of our POWs, within three months.

Like so many other endeavors that didn't turn out as expected, it can really be described by the saying of those days, "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time." And recently even MacNamara writes in his book that we made many mistakes.

Dave VN Class of 63

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 02:32 PM

Here is the Times Article, no time to clean up the line breaks and such--hope you can read it:

One Awful Night in Thanh Phong April 25, 2001

By GREGORY L. VISTICA

Senator Bob Kerrey's hands trembled slightly as he began to read six pages of documents that had just been handed to him. It was late 1998; the papers were nearly 30 years old. On the face of it, they were routine "after action" combat reports of the sort filed by the thousands during the Vietnam War. But Kerrey knew the pages held a personal secret -- of an event so traumatic that he says it once prompted fleeting thoughts of suicide.

Pulling the documents within inches of his eyes, he read intently about his time as a member of the Navy Seals and about a mission in 1969 that somehow went horribly wrong. As an inexperienced, 25-year-old lieutenant, Kerrey led a commando team on a raid of an isolated peasant hamlet called Thanh Phong in Vietnam's eastern Mekong Delta. While witnesses and official records give varying accounts of exactly what happened, one thing is certain: around midnight on Feb. 25, 1969, Kerrey and his men killed at least 13 unarmed women and children. The operation was brutal; for months afterward, Kerrey says, he feared going to sleep because of the terrible nightmares that haunted him.

The restless nights are mostly behind him now, his dreams about Vietnam more reflective. One of those, which he says recurs frequently, is about an uncle who disappeared in action during World War II. "In my dream I am about to leave for Vietnam," Kerrey wrote in an e-mail message last December. "He warns me that the greatest danger of war is not losing your life but the taking of others', and that human savagery is a very slippery slope."

Kerrey -- who left the Senate in January and is now president of the New School University in New York -- says he has spent the last three decades wondering if he could have done something different that night in Thanh Phong. "It's far more than guilt," he said that morning in 1998. "It's the shame. You can never, can never get away from it. It darkens your day. I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you, and I don't think it is. I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts."

Kerrey laid the documents down. He was clearly unsettled not just by their contents but also by the realization that four members of his Seals team had already spoken about the mission. I had heard about Thanh Phong indirectly from one of those men, Gerhard Klann. Klann, the most experienced member of Kerrey's Seals squad, had been so disturbed by his memories of that night that he confided in a commander who, many years later, told the story to me. That in turn spurred the search for the documents. Those were found after a three-month examination of thousands of pages of classified and unclassified Seals reports and communiqués that had been boxed up since the war in the Navy's archives.

The after-action reports provided the first concrete evidence of the terrible events, which Kerrey had hardly addressed even in private conversation, and he reacted testily when asked about it. "There's a part of me that wants to say to you all the memories that I've got are my memories, and I'm not going to talk about them," he said. "We thought we were going over there to fight for the American people. We come back, we find out that the American people didn't want us to do it. And ever since that time we've been poked, prodded, bent, spindled, mutilated, and I don't like it. Part of living with the memory, some of those memories, is to forget them. I've got a right to say to you it's none of your damned business. I carry memories of what I did, and I survive and live based upon lots of different mechanisms."

This first meeting came at a complicated time for Kerrey, who was just days from announcing whether he would make a second run for the presidency and challenge Vice President Al Gore for the 2000 Democratic nomination. Handsome and charismatic, a crafty politician with a keen intellect, Kerrey was widely regarded as an attractive candidate. He was an outspoken Democrat with a strong appeal for independents. There was the glamour of his much-publicized love affair while governor of Nebraska with Debra Winger, the actress. And he was a war hero. Though he rarely wore it, he was a recipient of the Medal of Honor -- awarded to him after he lost part of a leg during his last mission in Vietnam.

Kerrey knew that a race against an incumbent like Gore would be an uphill, nasty struggle. It was mostly this fact, he said, and doubts about his commitment to wage such a difficult campaign, that persuaded him to drop out, which he did just before Christmas. A little more than a year later, he would startle even his friends by announcing that he would not seek a third term in the Senate, despite overwhelmingly favorable poll numbers.

In an interview in January, Kerrey said that his actions in Vietnam had no bearing on his decision to drop out of elective politics, presidential or otherwise. He said he left politics simply because he wanted to pursue other challenges -- particularly in education -- while he was still relatively young.

Over the last two and a half years, Kerrey has spoken at length in three separate interviews -- as well as in numerous telephone calls and several e-mail messages and over dinners -- about what happened in Thanh Phong. After his initial reluctance, he talked willingly, and at times almost confessionally, about the events of Feb. 25, 1969. He did so "not because a public accounting will help me," he wrote in the December e-mail message, "but because it just might help someone else."

It became clear as he talked that he was still wrestling with the events of that night, fighting the vagaries of memory to reconstruct what happened in Thanh Phong and what he could have done to prevent it. He has spoken to very few people about the incident. As this article's publication neared, he began to talk to others, and first spoke publicly about his version of it 11 days ago in a speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute. He says the men in his Seals team have only recently begun to discuss Thanh Phong with one another.

Kerrey says he isn't afraid to accept responsibility for the incident or to own up to his role in it. "The only motivating fear I have is that someday I will face my maker. The opinion of other human beings matters, but the less it motivates me the better." He is under no illusions about the repercussions. "It's going to be very interesting to see the reactions to the story. I mean, because basically you're talking about a man who killed innocent civilians."

April 25, 2001

One Awful Night in Thanh Phong

(Page 2 of 7)

n the winter of 1969, a couple of days after the New York Jets won the Super Bowl, a military plane lifted off from the sprawling North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, Calif. Crammed inside were Kerrey and his gung-ho team, on their way to do battle in Vietnam.

Seals (the name stands for Sea-Air-Land units) commandos began as underwater demolition teams in the Second World War. During the Vietnam era, they evolved into special forces units, trained to operate behind enemy lines, collect intelligence and carry out assassinations. Officially, Kerrey's group was called Delta Platoon, Seals Team One, Fire Team Bravo. Unofficially, they would be dubbed Kerrey's Raiders, in honor of their enthusiastic commanding officer, who was ready to take on Hanoi, as he has said many times, with "a knife in my teeth." Only two of the men, Mike Ambrose and Gerhard Klann, had previous experience on Seals teams in Vietnam. The others -- William H. Tucker III, Gene Peterson, Rick Knepper, a medic named Lloyd Schreier and Kerrey himself -- were flying into the unknown.

Delta Platoon was assigned to the Navy's Task Force 115, based at Cam Ranh Bay and commanded by Capt. Roy Hoffmann, a favorite of Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr., the Navy's top man in Vietnam. Hoffmann was a cigar-chomping officer who brandished an M-16 assault rifle and wore a revolver when he visited troops in the field. "He was the classic body-count guy," Kerrey says. "Bunkers destroyed, hooches destroyed, sort of scorekeeper."

For several weeks, Kerrey and his team operated in the relatively safe environs of Cam Ranh Bay, the Navy's largest base in what was then South Vietnam, about midway up the coast. Then they began looking for a true war mission. They moved south to Cat Lo, a regional Navy command post where one of Hoffmann's senior deputies, Paul Connolly, would oversee their missions. The Navy kept a fleet of "swift boats" a few miles away, in the port of Vung Tau -- 50-foot, aluminum-skinned crafts equipped with two .50-caliber machine guns and twin 480-horsepower Detroit Diesels -- that moved Kerrey's squad on missions in the Mekong Delta.

Vung Tau was the stepping-off point for operations in the "Thanh Phu Secret Zone," a remote section of the Mekong Delta, about 75 miles southeast of Saigon. A lush, tropical region of palm and banana trees, rice paddies and mangrove swamps, it was considered among the most dangerous parts of Vietnam. Five of its eight villages -- including Thanh Phong -- were said to be under the control of the rebel Vietcong forces, according to David Marion, then an Army captain who occupied one of the more sensitive posts in the region.

Marion was the senior American military adviser to Tiet Lun Duc, who, as the Thanh Phu district chief, was the top Vietnamese official in the area. Duc, a 45-year-old military officer trained at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, arrived three months before Kerrey did, determined to drive out the Vietcong by almost any means. Marion says that Duc, whose predecessors had been far more relaxed, came in with the attitude " 'If you are my friend, you will do fine. You support me and the government of Vietnam, we get along O.K. You do not, you're Vietcong, you die.' And those were the rules."

Duc wasn't the only one who wanted to get tough with the Vietcong. In the summer of 1968, Hoffmann complained to his superiors in Pearl Harbor that the prevailing rules of engagement were too constrictive. "This was war," Hoffmann said in an interview last month. "This wasn't Sunday school." He made what he said was a pro forma request for looser rules, which was granted.

Previously, Hoffmann said, military personnel had not been permitted to fire unless they were fired upon. Under the new rules, he said, they could attack if they felt threatened. "I told them you not only have authority, I damned well expect action," Hoffmann recalled. "If there were men there and they didn't kill them or capture them, you'd hear from me."

Duc also re-established much of the Thanh Phu district as a "free-fire zone," which allowed combat pilots and Navy warships to attack any "targets of opportunity," including people and villages, without prior command authority. Peasants in free-fire zones were urged to relocate to government refugee centers, called "strategic hamlets." It was a difficult task, Marion said last month, because "they had been there for generations. They weren't going to leave, and basically they didn't care who was in charge." Those who didn't move to the strategic hamlets were labeled as Vietcong or as enemy sympathizers.

ypically, Navy seals undertook kidnap or assassination missions, looking to eliminate Vietcong leaders from among the local population. These were called "takeouts," Marion says, as in, "come out with me, or you die." Within weeks of Kerrey's arrival in Cat Lo, American and Vietnamese intelligence reported that the senior Vietcong leader in Thanh Phong, the "village secretary," was planning a meeting in the area. Effectively the mayor of the hamlet, the village secretary was a prime target, and Kerrey's squad began planning a "takeout" mission -- their first real action.

Thanh Phong was a village of between 75 and 150 people on the South China Sea. Too small to have a well-defined center, or even a school, it consisted of groups of four or five hooches -- the thatch huts peasants lived in -- strung out over about a third of a mile of shoreline. On Feb. 13, 1969, according to Seals after-action reports, Kerrey's team entered a section of Thanh Phong, searched two hooches and "interrogated 14 women and small children," looking for the village secretary. They departed on a swift boat the next day, then returned to the general area later that night only to abort because of a malfunctioning radio.

In interviews this year, Kerrey says he can't recall going to Thanh Phong that first time, about two weeks before the night of the killings. Yet the after-action reports from these two visits contain Kerrey's name, the date and the location. And in the 1998 conversation, Kerrey clearly recalled this earlier mission to Thanh Phong, when his Seals team found villagers "asleep with no men in the area." If the reports and Kerrey's first recollections are correct, then they must have had a pretty good idea of the situation they would face when they went back.

pril 25, 2001

One Awful Night in Thanh Phong

(Page 3 of 7)

Kerrey's squad would not return until Feb. 25, when intelligence sources again indicated that the village secretary would be holding a meeting, this time with a Vietcong military leader. A day or two before the fatal mission, Kerrey says, he flew over Thanh Phong with a naval intelligence officer and saw no women or children.

On Feb. 25, the district chief, Tiet Lun Duc, issued a blunt warning to the area's villagers. This was in response to an atrocity, Marion says, in which two Vietcong were said to have thrown a grenade into a hooch at 2 a.m., killing a 5-year-old and wounding a number of others. Reading from an official daily log he kept while in Vietnam, Marion quotes Duc as saying: "We want people to be government of Vietnam. Come out with us, and we will take this area back. You who do not come out, we will consider you to be Vietcong. You are the enemy. You will die."

n exact reconstruction of the events surrounding Kerrey's mission that night, 32 years after the fact, may not be entirely possible. Memories can be vague, and the trauma of such an intense episode can cause the mind to block out or alter major details. "It's entirely possible that I'm blacking a lot of it out," Kerrey said in an interview this month. Even so, official Navy records, Army radio logs found at the National Archives and interviews with some of Kerrey's team members leave no doubt that sometime close to midnight on Feb. 25, 1969, the tiny hamlet of Thanh Phong was visited with terrible and indiscriminate killing by Fire Team Bravo.

There are starkly different versions of what happened on the raid. In Kerrey's, the killings were by and large carried out in self-defense. By his own admission, however, his memory is faulty. "Please understand," he said in an e-mail message last December, "that my memory of this event is clouded by the fog of the evening, age and desire."

Another version, given by Kerrey's most experienced commando, Gerhard Klann, is far more troubling. It is consistent with the accounts given in interviews with one Vietnamese woman who claims to have witnessed the whole tragedy and with two people who say they are relatives of the victims. The interviews in Vietnam were conducted by producers for "60 Minutes II."

Mike Ambrose, today an executive with a Texas deep-sea-diving firm, offers another account, one that alternately supports Kerrey and Klann (who now lives in Pennsylvania, where he works in a steel mill). None of the others on the team would speak in any detail about the incident. Gene Peterson, who is retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, where he was a detective, and Lloyd Schreier, who runs a ranch in eastern Oregon, said simply that they did nothing wrong. William Tucker, who works on a ground crew for American Airlines in Dallas, didn't want to talk, either. He did say that as they were leaving Thanh Phong on the swift boat after the killings, he turned to Kerrey and said, "I don't like this stuff." Kerrey, he says, replied, "I don't like it, either." Rick Knepper, who retired after 30 years with the Seals, also declined to comment, saying: "My time in Vietnam was too hard to talk about. Please leave me alone."

errey says it was a moonless night when his raiders quietly took up positions on the shore not far from Thanh Phong. After being dropped off by swift boat, they sat motionless for a while, adjusting to the darkness and listening for possible enemy fighters. The blackness of the night gave them good cover.

As they moved out, Kerrey says, they followed their regular patrol routine. Ambrose, as "point man," went first, with Schreier, Kerrey and Klann close behind, followed by Knepper and Peterson. Tucker brought up the rear. They were armed with M-16 rifles, 9-millimeter side arms, knives, phosphorous grenades, disposable rocket launchers and a heavy machine gun that Klann carried, called a stoner.

They were closing in on the village when they came upon a hooch that hadn't shown up on their intelligence reports. Kerrey says he remembers Ambrose and Klann coming back to him and one of them saying, "We've got some men here, we have to take care of them."

In an interview this month, Kerrey, while taking responsibility for the killings, says he did not specifically order them. "Standard operating procedure was to dispose of the people we made contact with," he said. "Kill the people we made contact with, or we have to abort the mission." Kerrey said he viewed the Vietnamese, who he thought were men, as "security, as outposts. It does not work to merely bind and gag people, because they're going to get away." They used knives, Kerrey says, evidently to avoid betraying their presence with gunshots. Kerrey says he never saw who was inside the hooch and denies doing any of the killing himself. He also doesn't recall finding any weapons.

With the first hooch taken care of, the team then began moving along a dike that would take them into Thanh Phong. They crept along for about 15 minutes until they arrived at a group of four or five hooches, Kerrey says, identifiable only by the faint yellow light flickering inside.

At this point, Kerrey said in the 1998 interview, "we took fire from the target." An after-action report says the team "received several rounds from about 100 yards." Speaking this month, Kerrey said he couldn't be absolutely certain that shots were fired. "I don't know if it's noise," he said. "In fact, there is some dispute. Ambrose is certain we took fire." And in the fog of war, it's often hard to tell what is happening. "I was thinking there were a thousand guys over there," he said in January. "What do I know? The first thing I do is direct Knepper to return fire with a LAW," a disposable launcher designed to shoot rockets that pierce armor and explode. Then, Kerrey says, he gave the order for his men to open fire as they advanced on the hooches. Before the firing stopped, according to one of the Seals' after-action reports, the commandos had expended 1,200 rounds of ammunition.

The barrage lasted for only a few minutes as they made their way into the cluster of hooches. "The thing that I will remember until the day I die is walking in and finding, I don't know, 14 or so, I don't even know what the number was, women and children who were dead," Kerrey said in 1998. "I was expecting to find Vietcong soldiers with weapons, dead. Instead I found women and children." Sometime later, Kerrey says, they saw several people running away and took them out as well; according to one after-action report, there were seven killed. In the dark, they could not see if the dead were men or women.

Page 4 of 7)

It was not only a grisly scene but also a confusing one. It was no secret in Vietnam that hooches had earthen bunkers beneath them or nearby. At the first sign of trouble, the peasants would roll into the bunkers and hide. Often, they would just sleep in them.

Kerrey remembers finding the bodies in a group, though he doesn't know why they were clustered together. Maybe, he suggests, somebody had rounded them up. "Maybe there were guys in there that made them get into that position then got out themselves," Kerrey says. "But I don't know. It's significant that there are no men in the village. It's not a small item."

If Kerrey's story is accurate, then someone would have to have roused the women and children, gathered them into a group in the middle of the village, retreated to safety and then fired a few shots at Kerrey's squad. Another possibility is that upon hearing rifle fire the villagers did not dive into their bunkers -- as they were trained to do -- but for some reason ran into open ground and gathered together in a group.

In either case, it is hard to imagine that gunfire from 100 yards -- no matter how intense -- could kill every single member of a group of 14 or 15 people. Some would be expected to survive, particularly when the squad was shooting in the dark and in apparent panic.

But, as Kerrey says, memory is always a liar. That is what happened on Feb. 25, 1969, as he remembers it.

erhard Klann tells a much different story. Klann has long been haunted by memories of that night and confided in a former Seals captain in the 1980's in hopes of getting the killings off his chest. But Klann was reluctant to discuss the incident with me, ignoring two letters and numerous telephone calls over a period of about six months. After I drove out to his home in western Pennsylvania, however, he relented and began to tell his story, providing key information that helped to unearth the documents in the naval archives.

Klann, who immigrated to this country from Germany as a child, comes from a long line of German military men. He says he has come forward now to "cleanse my soul" of a deed that goes against his "moral fiber" as a soldier. He served with distinction in a 20-year Seals career and was among the first to be handpicked for an elite counterterrorism team known as Seal Team Six, which was established in 1980 while Americans were being held hostage in Iran.

Klann was known as a brawling, hard-drinking sort -- he was demoted once for fighting. (His former classification was later restored.) People who know him say they have never detected any animus for Kerrey, and he is repeatedly described by associates in positive terms, though two did mention alcohol. "He coped with the memory of that night with excessive drinking," says his former commanding officer, who adds, "I never saw alcohol interfere with Gerhard's duty."

In 1999 Klann was stopped by a trooper for alcohol-related reasons, which Klann says was an isolated incident following the death of a close friend. Klann objected vehemently to The Times's publishing this fact, which is in the public record. In anger, Klann said that if it was published, he would disavow his version of the Thanh Phong killings, despite his having described it in numerous interviews with The Times and with "60 Minutes II."

Klann's version of events in Thanh Phong was independently supported by an interview with a Vietnamese woman, Pham Tri Lanh, that was conducted by a "60 Minutes II" cameraman who was not familiar with Klann's account. Klann and Lanh -- who repeated her account in subsequent interviews with producers for "60 Minutes II" -- tell a story that agrees on the basic sequence of events and several of the critical details. The divergence from Kerrey's account begins with the first hooch, the one that hadn't shown up on the intelligence reports.

Klann says that at the first hooch -- where, in Kerrey's recollection, he was told there were only men -- were an older man, a woman about his age and three children under 12. Ambrose says that he saw an older man near the entrance and two women and two men inside. "I motioned for Klann to take him out," Ambrose says of the older man. Klann, in an interview with "60 Minutes II," says Kerrey gave the order to kill.

Klann says he grabbed the man, placed his hand over his mouth and took him away from the children so they couldn't see what he was about to do. "I stuck him here," he says, pointing to a spot just below his rib cage. "Then I did it again," pointing to his upper back. The man turned and grabbed Klann's forearm, the one with the knife, and pushed it away. "He wouldn't die. He kept moving, fighting back." Klann says he signaled for assistance and, as Ambrose watched, Kerrey came over and helped push the man to the ground. Kerrey put his knee on the man's chest, Klann says, as Klann drew his knife across his neck.

Klann says he doesn't remember exactly what happened next. He says that while he was taking out the man, some of the other squad members killed the rest -- the woman and the three children.

Kerrey, in all his interviews until this month, said he had no memory whatsoever of the killing of the old man. But when told about the recollections of Klann and Ambrose, Kerrey added to his account. He now says he remembers Klann having trouble with someone but insists he had no role in the violent death. "He was having difficulty killing one of the people that he was trying to kill."

Kerrey says he thinks he knows who came to Klann's assistance but refuses to "finger" him. "We were all near the first hooch, but I'm not killing these people. I'm 100 percent positive," Kerrey said in the interview this month. "I don't want to lay anything off on anybody. I'm a lieutenant in charge of this platoon, and I take responsibility."

Klann was adamant that it was Kerrey who held the old man down; and Ambrose, in an interview in 1998, was certain of it, too. But this month, Ambrose had second thoughts. "Maybe it was Bob," he now says.

As for the four others killed that night at the first hooch, Kerrey says that it was Klann and Ambrose who did the killing. The rest of the men "were back with me," he said in a telephone call this month. Ambrose refused to return repeated calls for comment on this aspect of Kerrey's account. Page 5 of 7)

The Vietnamese woman, Pham Tri Lanh, says that she witnessed all the killings. Then 30 years old and the wife of a Vietcong fighter, she says that she quickly snuck up on the scene at the first hooch after hearing cries. "I was hiding behind a banana tree, and I saw them cut the man's neck, first here and then there," she says. "His head was still attached at the back." She says that she also saw the commandos kill what she remembers as a woman and three children with their knives.

Lanh says the man and woman were the grandparents of the three young children. A woman claiming to be a relative of these victims took the "60 Minutes II" producers to a graveyard where a man named Bui Van Vat, his wife, Luu Thi Canh, and, in three small graves, their grandchildren -- two girls and a boy -- are buried. The date on the adults' gravestones, which were erected 10 years after the fact, is Feb. 24, 1969. (There is no further evidence that these five were in fact killed by Kerrey's squad.)

When the killing in the first hooch was done, Ambrose says, "me, Klann and Bob talked. 'Do we abort or do we go on?' There was plenty of noise in the first location. I felt compromised." The noise, apparently, was the screaming of the victims. Ambrose says that he recommended turning back to the extraction point but was overruled by the other team members, who wanted to get the village secretary.

About 15 minutes later, the team arrived at the cluster of hooches. But here, again, Klann's and Kerrey's versions diverge markedly. Kerrey says that they were shot at and returned fire from a distance of 100 yards or more. But Klann says that the squad rounded up women and children from a group of hooches on the fringes of the village. Klann says that they questioned them about the whereabouts of the village secretary. A quick search of the hooches turned up nothing.

Klann says that the commandos were in a quandary over their captives. They were deep in enemy territory with 15 or so people they felt they could not take prisoner. Yet, if they let the people go, they might alert enemy soldiers. "Our chances would have been slim to none to get out alive," Klann says.

They debated their options, Klann says, and finally decided to "kill them and get out of there." Lanh, who had been checking to see that her children were safe, says she crept close enough to witness what happened next. Klann says that Kerrey gave the order and the team, standing between 6 and 10 feet away, started shooting -- raking the group with automatic-weapons fire for about 30 seconds. They heard moans, Klann says, and began firing again, for another 30 seconds.

There was one final cry, from a baby. "The baby was the last one alive," Klann says, fighting back tears. "There were blood and guts splattering everywhere." Klann does not recall the men firing at the people who, in Kerrey's memory and the after-action reports, tried to run away after the initial massacre.

Klann, a large man at 6-foot-2 and about 230 pounds, pauses a moment, once again reliving the night's events. Pointing to his heart, he says: "I have to live with this in here. I still can't get it out of my mind. I'd take it back if I could, everybody would."

While Klann's version accounts for why the women and children died in a group, it, too, suffers from inconsistencies. It is not clear, for example, why the squad thought that noisily gunning down 13 people in a settled area would improve their prospects of making their retreat undetected. It also isn't clear why, having questioned the villagers two weeks before, releasing them and retreating without incident, they this time felt that releasing the captives would pose a danger.

Klann provides one clue to the Seals team's thinking on the second point. The first time in Thanh Phong, they were just asking questions. On the second visit, they had already killed the people at the first hooch and may have been concerned about leaving witnesses who could place them in the vicinity that night. "We had already compromised ourselves by killing the other people," Klann says.

When asked in 1998 about Klann's account of the events of that night, Kerrey said, "It's not my recollection of how it happened." But, he added: "I'm not going to make this worse by questioning somebody else's memory of it. But you would operate independently in this kind of situation. I mean, it would not surprise me if things were going on away from my line of sight that were different than what I was doing."

When asked again earlier this month, and after reassessing his memories, Kerrey began to qualify his original story. "It's possible that a slight version of that happened," Kerrey says, responding to Klann's account. "It's possible that some additional firing occurred after the main firing. Yeah, that's possible. But, boy, it's not my memory of it."

(Later, after that interview and as we were departing, Kerrey attacked Klann's credibility. He said that Klann was angry that Kerrey hadn't helped him get a Medal of Honor for his mission in Iran. "It's every man for himself now," Kerrey said. Klann, who says he harbors no ill will, says Kerrey urged him this month not to talk about Thanh Phong. Kerrey denies it.)

Ambrose, in a recent interview, "wholeheartedly" denied Klann's contention that the team rounded up the villagers and slaughtered them. Though he says his memory of the night has dimmed, he remembers bursting into one of the hooches to find only women. When he left the hooch, he says he remembers that "we took a round somewhere near the back by Knepper and Peterson. Somebody yelled incoming. Once we received fire, we immediately fired."

Then, he says, things got out of hand. "It got ridiculous pretty much once the guns got going. I was in survival mode. It was dark, you're not seeing much but movement and shadows. You couldn't tell if they were women or men." He says they were shooting from 20 to 50 feet, and when they stopped, he realized the dead were women and children.

nce the squad had been extracted from Thanh Phong, says William Garlow, the swift boat's commander, he and one of the squad, possibly Kerrey, each radioed an after-action report to Connolly, their operational commander in Cat Lo. The message from Kerrey's squad made no mention of civilians, saying only that they had killed 21 Vietcong. This report was sent to Hoffmann and to various other commanders. Within a day of the mission, however, reports from villagers about "alleged atrocities" in Thanh Phong began to surface in the radio communications at Marion's Army headquarters, and Marion's office began a preliminary investigation.

(Page 6 of 7)

Army radio logs found at the National Archives include a transmission from 8 p.m. on Feb. 27, 1969: "Be advised an old man from Thanh Phong presented himself to the district chief's headquarters with claims for retribution for alleged atrocities committed the night of 25 and 26 February 69. Thus far it appears 24 people were killed. 13 were women and children and one old man. 11 were unidentified and assumed to be VC. Navy Seals operating in the area. Investigation continues." This is just a message, not an official report, so the number of dead varies from other totals.

Connolly says he responded to Army inquiries that the killings were accidental, that Kerrey's team shot people who were running and that they couldn't tell gender or age in the darkness. Connolly says, however, that he never asked Kerrey about the killings. His response, he says, was based on conversations with various naval personnel, though he couldn't recall who.

By the time of the first Army messages about something dire happening in Thanh Phong, Kerrey and his Seals team were already hundreds of miles away. Garlow's boat had transferred them to the Coast Guard cutter PT Comfort, which whisked them out of the area and back up the coast to Hoffmann's headquarters.

Though Hoffmann sent reports about the incident to his bosses, he says he cannot recall anything about what happened or even that it occurred. His messages, however, generated an "attaboy" letter of congratulation to Kerrey's Raiders from a senior Navy officer. Apparently, the matter ended there, without further investigations. For the mission, the Navy awarded Kerrey a Bronze Star. "I certainly have never bragged that I won a Bronze Star on that evening," Kerrey says. "I don't feel like I did anything heroic that evening. Quite the contrary."

ine months later, news broke about the slaughter of at least 350 innocent villagers at My Lai by forces under the command of Lt. William L. Calley Jr. Calley, who would ultimately be convicted of the premeditated murder of 22 unarmed civilians, was sentenced to life at hard labor but served only three years under house arrest at Fort Benning. My Lai was a watershed, an event that finally convinced great segments of the American public that the Vietnam War was immoral, if not unwinnable. And in February 1970, about a year after Thanh Phong, a five-man Marine patrol entered the hamlet of Son Thang, about 20 miles south of Danang, and killed 16 women and children. The marines were charged with murder and prosecuted. Two of the accused, including the leader, were acquitted; one was given immunity and two were convicted of murder. Neither served more than 10 months in jail.

Gary Solis, a war-crimes expert at the United States Military Academy at West Point who wrote a book on Son Thang, says that atrocities were more common in Vietnam than we knew. While there were 122 convictions for war crimes in Vietnam, he says, "In my opinion, war crimes occurred that were never reported."

Did Kerrey and his men commit crimes of war, or were they just applying the basic rules of a dirty war as best they understood them? "Let the other people judge whether or not what I did was militarily allowable or morally ethical or inside the rules of war," Kerrey says. "Let them figure that out. I mean, I can make a case that it was."

The Army's Field Manual is explicit. Though it is an Army instruction, it represents United States policy regarding the law of armed conflict and is applicable to all the services. According to the manual: "A commander may not put his prisoners to death because their presence retards his movements or diminishes his power of resistance by necessitating a large guard, or by reason of their consuming supplies, or because it appears certain that they will regain their liberty through the impending success of their forces. It is likewise unlawful for a commander to kill his prisoners on grounds of self-preservation, even in the case of airborne or commando operations, although the circumstances of the operation may make necessary rigorous supervision of and restraint upon the movement of prisoners of war."

While there may be some room for interpretation in the policy, Walter Rockler, a semiretired lawyer in Washington who was a prosecutor at Nuremberg, says, "The basic rule is that in enemy territory you don't kill civilians, particularly unarmed civilians."

Kerrey insists that no matter what version is correct, his squad's actions would have been permitted under the rules then in effect. "Under the unwritten rules of Vietnam, we would have been justified had we not been fired upon," he said in 1998. "You were authorized to kill if you thought that it would be better. If you thought it would be better to bring them out, you were authorized to bring them out." This month Kerrey said flatly, "We were instructed not to take prisoners."

"Standard operating procedure" was widely understood to mean that, in a free-fire zone, any man was considered a "target of opportunity" and could be killed. Yet, there were other considerations. "It was quite clear what he wanted," Kerrey says of his commanding officer, Hoffmann. "He wanted hooches destroyed and people killed." Hoffmann agrees but says he never intended for his men to kill innocent women or children. But in Vietnam, he adds, it was hard to distinguish between guerrillas and noncombatants. Kerrey underscores that point. "There are people on the wall," he says, referring to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, which lists the names of all the Americans who died in Vietnam, "because they didn't realize a woman or a child could be carrying a gun."

Kerrey has spoken generally about the practical problems officers face in these situations. The commander's first consideration, he said, is the safety of his men. "With seven men operating, one goes down and you've got two carrying him," he says. "It doesn't take much in the way of casualties to put you in considerable risk of losing everybody."

Several officers, even some under Hoffmann's command, said the rules then in effect allowed for too much violence. William Garlow says he and his fellow swift-boat commanders were ordered to shoot up villages almost at random. "We burned their hooches and killed their livestock," he says. Even one of Hoffmann's senior commanders in Cat Lo says the killing became indiscriminate. "I hated it," says the former officer, who requested anonymity.

(Page 7 of 7)

Clearly, the official rules of war were abstract for a terrified Seals squad operating in the anarchy of the Vietnam War. We "were given a hell of a lot more latitude than we should have been. . . . " Kerrey said in 1998. "It was generally believed that you did what you had to do to protect your men. We were basically writing the rules as we went. My hope going in was that everything was fair game. Going out I did not believe that."

ob Kerrey was a more cautious commander when he went on his next big operation. On March 14, 1969, Kerrey's Raiders were sent on another abduction mission, this time to snatch a small group of Vietcong on Hon Tam Island in Cam Ranh Bay. Kerrey says he had already decided that anybody they came upon would be taken prisoner. After scaling a 350-foot, near-vertical cliff, the men prepared their attack. But things went wrong almost from the start, partly because of Kerrey's determination to avoid a situation in which he would have to choose between killing and taking prisoners. Eventually the Vietcong realized the Seals were closing in and opened fire. In the ensuing intense battle, a grenade exploded at Kerrey's feet.

Lloyd Schreier, the Seals medic, dressed Kerrey's wounds as best he could and pumped him full of morphine. Kerrey was then flown by helicopter to the 26th Field Hospital at Cam Ranh Bay, then on to a Navy hospital in Philadelphia.

When Bob Kerrey awoke from surgery, he saw his mother and father sitting at the end of the bed. The surgeons had removed the lower part of his right leg below the knee. Kerrey had joined the Navy Seals, an elite corps that required irrefutable physical strength. Now he was disabled, physically and emotionally. And he was lost, confused and angry at his country.

He told the excruciating story of Thanh Phong to his mother, then to a minister and, later, to his first wife. His mother cried as she held her son, telling him that he would be O.K. And he would be, eventually. Yet, "I cannot be what I once was," he says. "Carefree, no nightmares, no pain, no remorse, no regrets, feeling in church like God was smiling warmly down upon me as if I was the most special thing on earth. That's what it was before, and that's not the way it is now."

When Kerrey learned that he would be awarded the Medal of Honor, he says he had severe doubts about accepting it. He didn't think he deserved it, he says, and he felt like a pawn in Nixon's war. "The medal was given to me within days of the invasion of Cambodia. . . . I felt like I was being used, . . . flagged. You know, to take the edge off the horrible experiences." But he accepted it, he says, for the sake of all members of the Seals.

After recovering from his wounds, he drifted for a bit in California, taking courses at Berkeley. Within a year he was home in Nebraska, getting involved in antiwar protests. He married, had two children, tried his hand at the restaurant business and, later, opened a health club. Before long he was a wealthy man. Then he surprised most everyone by running for governor of Nebraska. In 1982, as a political novice who supported gay rights in conservative Nebraska, he narrowly beat the incumbent, Gov. Charles Thone. But in 1985, with his poll numbers above 70 percent, he decided to step down after one term.

He returned to California and assisted Walter Capps, a fellow Nebraskan who was teaching a course on the Vietnam War at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The course became a gathering place where prominent veterans would come to talk about the war. Kerrey was still bitter about Vietnam and haunted by Thanh Phong. In a speech Kerrey gave to the class that was later published in a book that Capps edited, Kerrey compared life on the farm to his actions in Vietnam. "Around the farm, there is an activity that no one likes to do. Yet it is sometimes necessary. When a cat gives birth to kittens that aren't needed, the kittens must be destroyed. And there is a moment when you are holding the kitten under the water when you know that if you bring that kitten back above the water it will live, and if you don't bring it back above in that instant the kitten will be dead. This, for me, is a perfect metaphor for those dreadful moments in war when you do not quite do what you previously thought you would do."

In Santa Barbara Kerrey made another spur-of-the-moment decision, this time to run for the U.S. Senate from Nebraska. The incumbent had died, leaving the seat open to challenge in November 1988. Kerrey put together a series of patriotic, Reagan-style, morning-in-America-type commercials and stuck to positive themes. He won easily.

In the Senate, Kerrey had a reputation as a maverick whom few of his colleagues truly understood. For his entire political career, he held his secret. In his Capitol Hill office, he kept an easel where he sometimes made collages using newspaper pictures of people in agony. He wrote poetry and painted in watercolors. In the center of one landscape watercolor, Kerrey wrote in black marker the words of Emily Dickinson.

Remorse is Memory awake, Her companies astir, - A presence of departed acts At window and at door.

Its past set down before the soul, And lighted with a match, Perusal to facilitate Of its condensed despatch.

Remorse is cureless, -- the disease Not even God can heal; For 'tis His institution, -- The complement of Hell.

Gregory L. Vistica is the author of "Fall From Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy" and was formerly the national security correspondent for Newsweek. He is co-producing a segment on Bob Kerrey and Thanh Phong for "60 Minutes II." The New York Times Magazine and "60 Minutes II" have coordinated reporting efforts on this story. "60 Minutes II" plans to air its segment May 1.

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Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 01:27 PM

Spaw,

In a posting to this thread on April 25, you refer to Tom Paxton as a "war vet." Tom is an army vet, not a war vet. His time in the service came after Korea and before Vietnam. Most of his army time was served at a post in New Jersey and that allowed him to spend a lot of his weekends hanging out in Greenwich Village.

Dave (the Ancient Mariner),

I get a sense from your posts that you are suggesting that soldiers cannot be murderers. I'm sorry, but when unarmed civilians are lined up and killed, that is murder.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Apr 01 - 11:46 AM

After reading the New York Sunday Times article this morning, I can only say what a miserable, bitter, futile story for everyone involved.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 10:13 PM

I will reserve judgement until I know the facts. At this point, his own co seal says they were women and children, and, that they were not armed. Nuff said.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 08:47 PM

Anyone here ever seen a Vietnamese Officer convicted of war crimes??? They murdered Americans and their own people too! The weapons were probably taken and hidden before the bodies were found.. Or those people were put in harms way by being in the middle of a firefight. To call this man a murderer is assinine and futile. He was a soldier not a murderer.. Casualties yes, Murdered No! Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,El Gringo Viejo
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 08:21 PM

WELL SAID SPAW. I am from the thirties, forties, and fifties. Wars and rumors of war as far back as I can remember.

Senator Kerry says his squad was fired on and they returned fire.

NUFF SAID.

Gringo

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 07:43 PM

Of course Mousethief. My point is, a butcher is a butcher no matter which side he's on. If the Nazis had won, dont you think someone would be on trial for the firestorm in Dresden? Mowing down unarmed women and children is an atrocity...period. There is suppose to be an in depth report on this incident on 60 minutes 2 next Tuesday.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 07:39 PM

In one real sense all war is a crime and all war is an atrocity. But in another sense there are distinctions between some thing that happen in war which can be seen tragic necessities, or terrible accidents - and some which are war crimes. If we don't accept that distinction it means that there's no difference between a soldier doing his duty and some SS extermination squad. Or the equivalent in other wars.

When Calley and his comrades rounded up the people of My Lai and shot them down, that was murder, every bit as much as when Timothy McVeigh exploded his bomb in Oklahoma. And if that was what Bob Kerrey did on that night in 1969, that was murder too. And if it was murder, anyone involved in a cover-up was an accesory to murder.

That being said, there are things that happen to people in war that can damage and change them in ways that diminish their personal guilt. Maybe if Calley and McVeigh hadn't gone off to war they wouldn't have turned into murderers. And maybe Bob Kerrey's account of what happened on that night is the truth, and he didn't shoot civilian prisoners in cold blood.

What matters isn't getting vengeance and judging individual people - it's finding the truth, and getting rid of the lies and the whitewash. That applies whether it's Bloody Sunday in Derry or Vietnam or Chile or Bosnia. Truth and Reconciliation, not vengeance - but the Truth comes first.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: GUEST,mousethief at the library
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 03:28 PM

Kendall, can't there be butchery when there is no war? WW2 was a war to stop butchery. It worked. Thank goodness.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 03:11 PM

I have been trying to connect to the NYT magazine article, which gives the other version of this story, but haven't had any success--if anyone else has been able to get it, could you post the article here? (not just the link, but the text from the article)

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 11:11 AM

War is war. Butchery is butchery. Listen to Tom Paxtons song "On the road from Srebrenica"

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 10:14 AM

Alex,
Sadly our guest's use of the word "piece" was not a misspell. He was being "cute".

Sinsull,
I wish I had written your last post. I couldn't agree more.

--JH

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 01:28 AM

"There never was a good war or a bad peace."

The "peace" leading up to ww2, in which Britain basically gave the Sudetenland to Hitler in exchange for peace, was a bad peace, IMHO.

Any peace which coincides with injustice, especially injustice on a huge scale, is a bad peace.

Whether or not a war would be better is perhaps another question. I think Britain might have saved a lot of lives if they had invaded Germany many years earlier, instead of appeasing the madman.

Of course it's easy to armchair quarterback a war that's over half a century distant.

Alex

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: DougR
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 01:26 AM

If Kerrey thought he could not get his squad safely out ot that area without killing the civilians, armed or unarmed, he probably was justified in doing whatever he did, as terrible as it is. His job was to complete his mission, and get his men safely back to base.

As others have pointed out, war is hell, and civilians are killed in war. What about the horrendous number of civilian calualties at Dresden and other German cities during WW2? Should the bomb crews on those missions be held accountable because of the loss of civilian life? I don't think so. They were doing what they were supposed to do.

DougR

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Apr 01 - 12:33 AM



Not exactly what I said. Put in the exact same circumstances, I believe I would have done the same thing as Calley or Kerrey. Kill or be killed. This was not a war in which the bad guys wore red coats to identify themselves. These officers acted on the assumption that they were fighting the "enemy". That's what soldiers do - kill the enemy before he kills you or yours.

The bureaucrats betrayed Calley when they set him up to take the fall rather than tell Mrs. Murphy in middletown, USA that their war had turned her apple cheeked son into a monster capable of believing that killing women and children was a necessary action. Keep in mind that those women and children may have been the "enemy". Also keep in mind that Kerrey was given a medal for doing exactly what Calley did. Calley was painted as a demented "psycho" who was just as likely to climb a campus tower and shoot down students. He was in fact a soldier behaving under combat conditions.

Am I condoning murder? - NO. I am looking at both situations from the perspective of a mother who knows that her child properly trained by her government is capable of the same actions. Who then is responsible? As I said earlier: No child of mine, no grandchild of mine will ever go to war to defend anything but American soil and maybe Canada. Narrow thinking and stupid? I agree. But I don't trust our politicians to spend the lives of our children wisely or honestly.

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From:
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 11:58 PM

that bit about wanting book sales is absolutely nuts. mg

Subject: RE: Another Vietnam Massacre Emerges
From: uncle bill
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 11:19 PM

Kerry didn't get his medals for killing but for saving his freinds. You people need to wake up and realize that Kerry has a book coming out and gee, I wonder what this will do for sales? Mucho free publicity and both Kerry- haters and Kerry admirers will rush to buy it to re-enforce their own positions.